Wasted heat from industry could provide power and reduce emissions, report finds

A new report published by the Royal Society, Unlocking thermal energy: Capture, storage and re-use of industrial waste heat, highlights the significant potential of industrial waste heat to support the UK’s transition to net zero. The report finds that around half of the energy used in industry is lost as waste heat, even in efficient and low-carbon processes, and argues that recovering this energy could reduce emissions, lower energy costs and ease pressure on the electricity system.

The report promotes a “heat cascade” approach, in which waste heat is reused at progressively lower temperatures — first on site, then across industrial clusters, and ultimately through local heat networks for low-temperature applications such as space heating. It emphasises the need for advances in heat capture technologies, thermal energy storage and supporting infrastructure, alongside coordinated action across policy, industry and research to integrate heat reuse into future industrial transitions.

Research at the Department of Engineering Science at Oxford aligns closely with these priorities. Dr Binjian Nie, Departmental Lecturer in Chemical Engineering, leads the Energy Storage and Energy Carriers Group , which works at the intersection of thermal energy storage, chemical energy carriers, renewable integration and industrial decarbonisation. The group’s research on the synergy between waste heat recovery, carbon capture and hydrogen production, funded by the UKRI Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC) was highlighted during the report’s launch event at the Royal Society.

Dr Nie’s wider work on thermal energy storage and management — including applications in data-centre cooling and clean cold-chain logistics — directly supports the technological developments identified in the report as essential for unlocking the value of industrial waste heat.

His work, which contributes to this report, can be found here:

Industry waste heat

[1] UKRI IDRIC Frontiers Report on ‘Industrial Heat and Energy Efficiency’, highlighting key research to decarbonise industrial heating and cooling processes that are critical for our industrial heartlands to achieve net zero targets and economic growth (https://idric.org/wp-content/uploads/IDRIC-Frontiers-Report-Industrial-Heat-and-Energy-Efficiency.pdf)

[2] Synergy of carbon capture, waste heat recovery and hydrogen production for industrial decarbonisation. Energy Conversion and Management 312. See: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2024.118568

Clean cooling for Data Centres and Cold Chain logistics

[3] Cooling technologies for data centres and telecommunication base stations – A comprehensive review. Journal of Cleaner Production 334. See: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.130280

[4] A phase change material (PCM) based passively cooled container for integrated road-rail cold chain transportation – An experimental study. Applied Thermal Engineering 195. See: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2021.117204

[5] Thermal Energy Storage: Materials, Devices, Systems and Applications. London, UK: The Royal Society of Chemistry.